What an excellent discussion.
I am pleased to predict that I shall probably be too old to travel by air before d426 gets to sit in command of his joystick and panel in his airline HQ and flies 'his' passengers to the US.
I have experienced F/Os with little 'handling' skills; who are LOST without the coloured line on the TV screen in front of them showing where they are and where they are going; who CANNOT have the background with which us older pilots grew up.
It may be that reliable automation will get to the point where the public, accountants and press will accept the occasional loss of a large unmanned hull due to a programming error as a reasonable statistic but......... is there any room in flufdriver's boat......................
I have always been vaguely re-assured as a pasenger that my flight crew would arrive first on the scene of any accident, but the thought of d426 putting his head in his hands, then throwing the offending joystick across the room before going for stress counselling and returning to post 2 weeks later is just TOO MUCH!
Last edited by BOAC; 27th Aug 2005 at 21:02.